Evaluation of Factors Driving Real Estate Investment Decisions by Private Investors in South – East Nigeria (Published)
This research focused on evaluating the factors driving real estate investment decisions among private investors in South – East Nigeria with a view to appraising real estate investment pattern in the study area. The study was conducted in South-East Nigeria specifically; Anambra, Enugu and Imo State. Data were collected from 331 registered Estate Surveyors and Valuers, 131 members of Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria (REDAN) and 133 private real estate investors in selected states. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The data collected was analysed using Percentage, Mean Score, and Kruskal Wallis test with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, version 25). Respondents were required to scale the impact factors base on five points likert scale. The results revealed that economic factors (interest rate, inflation rate, population growth and high cost of building materials) have significant effects on real estate investment decisions and government policies (Land Use Act), shortage of finance, and high cost of building materials are found to be most significant constraints to real estate investment decisions. The study concludes that interest rate, inflation rate, population growth and high cost of building materials influence real estate investment decisions. The study recommends among others the need for potential real estate investors to consider the factors that drive real estate investment decision before investing in real estate.
Keywords: Decisions, Factors, private investors, real estate investment
The Decision Constraints in Construction Project Scheduling Using the Ms Project Planner (Published)
This paper reports a library research which investigated the way decisions of early start or late start schedules are applied in the MS Project. The problem intended to solve or clarify is whether literature holds the scenarios where options of early or late start schedules may show superior schedule performance. It is noted that key scheduling processes and procedures such as choice of early start schedule and late start schedule will significantly impact project performance. This literature search proposed answer to the question: How can the planner make better scheduling decisions and explore relative benefits of alternative options? It shows that project performance evaluation results may provide evidence that some choice influence schedule variability which in turn, is strongly and positively correlated to productivity. It is imperative for contractors to continually monitor the scheduling practices adopted, the choice made when the schedule is developed and relate these to project performance in order to identify particularly effective scheduling practices for use in scheduling future projects. Strong argument is developed from literature that if network scheduling methods fail to address the issue of start time constraints for various project tasks, it is likely that the schedules generated will be inaccurate. This is because changes in the schedule are inevitable occurrences in construction projects. The causes of such changes are numerous and well catalogued in the literature: weather, owner-directed changes, information request and information release problems, period for approval of submittals, unexpected soil conditions, long lead supply items, delays, accelerations, and rework that affects schedule coordination difficulties. Such changes are challenging and difficult to proactively accommodate in the initial schedule development because they affect multiple activities, often leading to disruption of activity start dates of succeeding tasks. It is therefore important to satisfy practical scheduling requirements, such as scheduling an activity to start only when all information requests, all prerequisite work and materials required for its commencement are available. The paper concludes that a good understanding of the tasks affected by these listed delay causes is important so that a right choice of start date is made to proactively nip the delay situation at the bud. If disruption of activity start is reduced to zero particularly for the critical activities, then the project may finish on the due date, with optimum overall project cost.
Keywords: Construction Scheduling, Decisions, MS Project, Most likely., Optimism, Pessimism, Project Calendars
The Decision Constraints in Construction Project Scheduling Using the Ms Project Planner (Published)
This paper reports a library research which investigated the way decisions of early start or late start schedules are applied in the MS Project. The problem intended to solve or clarify is whether literature holds the scenarios where options of early or late start schedules may show superior schedule performance. It is noted that key scheduling processes and procedures such as choice of early start schedule and late start schedule will significantly impact project performance. This literature search proposed answer to the question: How can the planner make better scheduling decisions and explore relative benefits of alternative options? It shows that project performance evaluation results may provide evidence that some choice influence schedule variability which in turn, is strongly and positively correlated to productivity. It is imperative for contractors to continually monitor the scheduling practices adopted, the choice made when the schedule is developed and relate these to project performance in order to identify particularly effective scheduling practices for use in scheduling future projects. Strong argument is developed from literature that if network scheduling methods fail to address the issue of start time constraints for various project tasks, it is likely that the schedules generated will be inaccurate. This is because changes in the schedule are inevitable occurrences in construction projects. The causes of such changes are numerous and well catalogued in the literature: weather, owner-directed changes, information request and information release problems, period for approval of submittals, unexpected soil conditions, long lead supply items, delays, accelerations, and rework that affects schedule coordination difficulties. Such changes are challenging and difficult to proactively accommodate in the initial schedule development because they affect multiple activities, often leading to disruption of activity start dates of succeeding tasks. It is therefore important to satisfy practical scheduling requirements, such as scheduling an activity to start only when all information requests, all prerequisite work and materials required for its commencement are available. The paper concludes that a good understanding of the tasks affected by these listed delay causes is important so that a right choice of start date is made to proactively nip the delay situation at the bud. If disruption of activity start is reduced to zero particularly for the critical activities, then the project may finish on the due date, with optimum overall project cost.
Keywords: Construction Scheduling, Decisions, MS Project, Optimism, Pessimism, Project Calendars